Virgina Tech Massacre Liken to Columbine

Another April has been showered with tragedy. In years past we have dealt with Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine, and now Virginia Tech.

Seung- Hui Cho opening fire on the campus on April 16, 2007 and it took hours to let people on the campus know what was going on. There seems to have been an enormous amount of confusion in the matter. Grade school through high school administrators (both public and private) have striven for years to make their school safer and have gone to great lengths to alert teachers and counselors as to how to recognize when someone is in crisis. They have plans in place incase the unthinkable happens.

This young man, who by all accounts came from a good, decent family, was clearly in crisis. One of his professors recognized it, his classmates recognized it, but all the recognition in the world does no good if nothing is done about it. Unfortunately, college aged students can be in real trouble and there isn't a lot anyone at the school can do about it. They can find a reason to expel the student, but they cannot force them into psychiatric care. Just as sometimes happens when someone is fired from their employment, it won't stop them from returning to the location and taking out their frustration on their former co-workers. All he would have done is show up on campus as a non-student and done it anyway.

It is argued however that Cho was not mentally disturbed, but merely desensitized to violence in a world where violence is prevalent in everything from television and movies, to music and games. He was angry for some reason or another, and seeing no reason not to act out, he did and he got the attention he craved. Unfortunately it was the wrong kind of attention.

When is society going to realize that our children need discipline so that they know acting out is not the answer; that just because they are angry is no reason to go around shooting people. Actions have consequences. Once upon a time parents were allowed to discipline their children as they saw fit. I'm not talking about beating them, or locking them away in rooms, forgotten by the world; that is clearly abuse, and no one condones that. I'm talking about a few well placed swats to the posterior, the rear-end, whatever you want to call it. One can give a "time out" until the cows come home and eventually the kid is going to figure out a way to amuse himself and the punishment phase becomes useless. Making one sit away from others for a time to cool off does work, but when it's done for everything, it becomes ineffective.

I wish I could remember exactly what it was that my son did, but once he did something that he was told never to do because it would be dangerous to himself or others (that much I do remember) and he received exactly three swats. It did not kill him and today he is a very well rounded individual who has never been in trouble. The purpose of the swats? It was me give him a few swats or him think he could get away with it with a minor 'time out' and suddenly wondering why he was in jail and getting punished far worse than a few swats by his parents, which he very seldom got (maybe three times his entire life). He did threaten to call child services as he had been told to do in school if ever his parents laid a hand on him. I handed him the phone and offered to dial the number for him if he thought he could do better living elsewhere, because there was no way he was going to be in a position to rule the home where clearly he was not able to make responsible decisions. He declined the offer and never threatened us again.

What are some ways to help keep aware of what your children are thinking or are up to? There are several. For instance, the idea that it is their room and therefore you have no right as parents to invade their space is bogus. The children are not the ones who are paying the mortgage or rent, the parent or guardian is, therefore it does not belong to the child. Feel free to search it. Look under the bed, between the mattress and box-spring, pull out the dresser drawers and check the insides as well as the bottoms, search the closet. Search their vehicle (if they drive); they most likely aren't paying for the car or at least the insurance, and it is parked on your property. I'm not suggesting you read your daughter's diary, but do go on that computer you are paying to be online (and probably paying for the computer too) and see if they are going online frequenting blogs and message boards -they can't expect that to be private.

While there are all sorts of programs to keep your kids from visiting inappropriate websites and downloading perceived pornography, they don't keep them from posting on a blog or opening a free web space account (website). If you want to know what they're up to, look for their website or blog, it might be totally innocent, but you may find out that they are having some serious problems and they are afraid to talk to you about it. For some reason they will literally bare their souls to the world, but they won't say one word to their parents (perhaps fear of disappointing the parents or parental judgment.) Get them help whether they like it or not. Medication may not be necessary, but sometimes talking to someone who can show them how to cope with different situations, such a counselor would do, would be just the thing to do. Sometimes the perfect thing to do, is to discover that they really can talk to their parents, and figure out together how to solve a problem. Perhaps if Sueng-Hui Cho had just discussed how he felt with his parents, there wouldn't be 33 dead people (including himself) and scores of traumatized individuals.

This is not to say that Cho's parents did not discipline him (in whatever way they saw fit) or that had he said something they would not have listened. He was away at school, not at home, and therefore they were not able to see him on a daily basis to see for themselves what was happening to him. WHat I've seen over the years with similar cases, is that the parents are grieving as well, and that they are just as surprised by the attack as everyone else. At least in the cases where the kids are still in high school or younger, someone could have been diligent regardless of how they want to respect the child's privacy. In every case, someone should have spoken up loudly enough to be heard.